32 THE CABALIST OF EAST BR.OADW A Y AS happens so often in New York, .r-l.. the neighborhood changed. The synagogues became churches, the yeshivas 1 estaurants or garages. Here and there one could still see a Jewish old people's home, a shop selling Hebrew books, a meeting place for landslett from some village in Ru- mania or Hungary. I had to come downtown a few tImes a week, because the Yiddish newspaper to which I con- tributed was still there. In the cafeteria on the corner, in former times one could meet Yiddish writers, journalists, teachers, fund raisers for ISI ael, and the like. Blintzes, borscht, kreplech, chopped liver, rice pudding, and egg cookie" were the standard dishes. Now the place catered mainly to Negroes and Puerto Ricans. The voices were different, thè smells were different. Still, I used to go there occasionally to eat a quick lunch or to drink a cup of coffee. Each time I entered the cafe- teria, I would immediately see a man 1']1 cal1 Joel Yabloner, an old Yiddish wrIter who specialized in the cabala He had published books îbout Holy Isaac Luria, Rabbi Moshe of Cordoba, the Baal Shem, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. Yabloner had translated part of the Zohar into Yiddish. He also wrote in Hebrew. According to 111Y calcula tions, he must have been in his early seventies. ] oel Y abloner, taB, lean, his face sallow and wrinkled, had a pointed skull without a single hair, a sharp nose, sunken cheeks, a throat with a promi- nent Adam's apple. His eyes bulged and were the color of amber. He wore a shabby suit and an unbuttoned shirt that revealed the white hair on his chest Yabloner had never mar- ried. In his youth he suffered from consumption, and the doc- tors had sent hIm to a sanatorium in Colorado. Someone told I11e that there he was forced to eat pork, and îS a result he fell Into melan- choly. I seldo111 heard lum utter a word. When I greeted him, he barely nodded and often averted his eyeso He lived on the fe - dollars î week the Yiddish Writers Union could spare him. His apartment on Broome Stleet had no bath, telephone, central heating. He ate neither fish nor meat, not even eggs or milk-only bread, vegetables, and fruit. In the cafeteria he always ordered a cup of black coffee and a dish of prunes He would sit for hours staring at the revolving door, at the cashier's desk, or the wall where, years ago, a commercial artist had painted the mar- ket on Orchard Street, with its push- carts and peddlers. The paint was peel- Ing now. The president of the \V rlters Union told me that although aU of Joel Ya- bloner's friends and admirers had died out here in New York, he still had rela- tives and disciples In the land of Israel. They had often invited him to come there to live. They would publish his works, they promised (he had trunks filled with manuscripts), find c:ln apart- ment for hIm, and see that he was taken care of in every way. Yahloner had a nephew in ] erusalem who was a pro- fessor at the university Thel e Were still some Zionist leaders who considered Joel Yabloner their spiritual father. So why should he sit here on East Broad- way, a silent and forgotten man? The \V riters Union would have sent his pen- sion to him in Israel, and he could also have received Social Security, which he had never bothered to claim. Here in New York he had already heen hur- glarized a few times. A 111ugger had knocked out hIs last thl ee teeth. Eiser- man, the dentist who had translated Shakespeare's sonnets into Yiddish, told me that he had offered to make Ya- bloner a set of false teeth, but Yabloner had said to him, "There is onl) one step from false teeth to a false brain." " A 1 " great man, Jut a queer one, Eiserman said to me while he drilled and filled my own teeth. "Or perhaps he wants to atone for his sins this way. I've heard that he had love affairs in I 0 1 " lIS yout 1. "Yabloner-Iove affairs? " "Yes, love affall s. I myself knew a Hebrew teacher, Deborah Soltis, who was madly in love with hÍ1n. She was m} patient. She died about ten years ago." In connection with this, Eiserman told me a curious epi- sode. Joel Yabloncl and Deb- orah SoltIs saw each other over a perIod of twenty years, indulging in long conversations, often discuss- ing Hehrew literature, the fine points of grammar, Maimonides, and Rabbi ] udah ha-Levi, but the pair never went so far as to kiss The closest tl1e} came was once when both of them were looking up the meanIng of a word or an idiom in Ben- Yahudah's great dic- tionary and their heads met accidentall}. )7 abloner fel] into a playful mood and saId, "Deborah, let's trade eyeglasses." "What for?" Deborah Soltis asked. "Oh, just like that Only for a little 1 0 1 " W11 e The two lovers exchanged reading glasses, but he couldn't read wIth hers and she couldn't read with his. So they replaced their own glasses on their own noses-and that was the most intimate contact the two ever achieved. E VENTUALLY, I <;topped going down to East Broadway. I sent my articles to the newspaper by mail. I forgot] oel Yabloner. I didn't even know that he was still alive. Then one day when I walked Into a hotel lobby in Tel Aviv I heard applause in an adjoining hall The dOOI to the hall was half open and I looked in. There was Joel Yabloner behind a lectern, 111akIng a speech. He wore an alpaca suit, ct white shirt, a silk skul1cap, and Ills face appeared fresh, rosy, young. He had a full set of new teeth înd had sprouted a white goatee. I happened not to be especially busy, so [ found an empty chair and sat down. Yabloner did not speak modern He- brew but the old holy tongue with the L\shkenazi pronunciation. V\-rhen he gesticulated, I noticed the sparkling links in his Î1nmaculate shirt cuffs. I heard him say in a Talmudic singsong, "Since the InfinIte One filled alJ space and, as the Zohar expresses it, 'No space is empty of Him,' how did He create the universe? Rabbi Chaim Vital gave the answer: 'Before creation, the at- tributes of the Almighty were all po- tential, not actual. How can one be a king without subjects, and how can there be mercy wIthout anyone to re- ceive it?' " Yabloner clutched his beard, glanced at his notes. Once in a while, he took a sip from a glass of tea. I observed quite a number of wonlen and even young girls in the audience. A few stu- dents took notes. How strange-there was also d nun. She must have under- stood Hèbrew. "The Jewish state has resuscItated Joel Yablonel," I said to 111yself. One seldom has a chance to enjoy someone else's good fortune, and for me Yabloner's triumph was a sym- bol of the Eternal Jew. He had spent decades as a lonely, neglected man. Now he seemed to have come into his own. I listened to the rest of the lecture, which was followed hy a question pe- riod. Unbelievable, but that sad man had a sense of humor. I learned that the lecture had been organized bv a committee whIch had undertaken to publish Yabloner's work. One of the members of the comnlittee knew me, and asked if I wished to attend a ban- quet in Yablonel' s honor. "Since you are a vegetarian," he added, "here is Your chance They will serve only vegetables, fruits, nuts. When do they